Word.ws English Dictionary

petter

Syllables: pet·terUK/ˈpɛtə/US/ˈpɛtə(ɹ)/

petter noun: one who pets.

Noun

petter (plural petters)

  1. (rare) One who pets.
    • […] 36) are good sports 37) have a good sense of humor 38) are not sissies 39) do not try to neck on the first date 40) are not routine petters […]1953, Ernest Watson Burgess, Paul Wallin, Engagement and marriage
    • I was always a petter of my horses, teaching them to do some minor tricks.2007, George Philip, Cowboy life: the letters of George Philip

Verb

petter (third-person singular simple present petters, present participle pettering, simple past and past participle pettered)

  1. (rare) To make an irregular, repetitive sound.
    • "What an infernal shower!" ejaculated the baronet, as the rain pettered against his plate glass.1840, Horace Smith, editor, Memoirs, Letters, and Comic Miscellanies in Prose and Verse of the late James Smith, Esq., volume II, London: Henry Colburn, page 231
    • Yet semblable Her mild voice Is, to that blissful sound, in Summer drought ; Of pettering rain, on léaves of parched Earths dust.1916, Charles M. Doughty, The Titans, London: Duckworth & Co., page 106

Proper noun capitalized: Petter

Petter (plural Petters)

  1. A surname from Dutch or German.

Forms of petter

Noun
pluralpetters
Verb
third-person singular presentpetters
present participlepettering
past participlepettered
pastpettered
Proper noun
pluralPetters

Origin of petter

From pet + -er.

Onomatopoeic; compare patter.

Borrowed from Dutch and German Ludewig, a variant of the personal name Peter.

Words that rhyme with petter

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about petter

What does petter mean?
Petter means one who pets.
What part of speech is petter?
Petter can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce petter?
Petter is pronounced /ˈpɛtə/ (UK).
What is the plural of petter?
The plural of petter is petters.

Words near petter in the dictionary

  1. petted
  2. petted the kitty
  3. pettedness
  4. Pettengill
  5. Pettengills
  6. petter
  7. Petter's big-footed mice
  8. Petter's big-footed mouse
  9. petterdite
  10. Petteril
  11. petters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: petter (page history and authors); Petter (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “petter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/petter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.